Similar to Driskell’s interpretations of Dial’s work is Cubbs’s essay titled “Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial,” which offers another perspective about how materials and their haphazard-like appearance speak to the horrific realities of Black Americans in the South, particularly between the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth century. In Alabama, Dial had first-hand experiences of living amidst the hostility of Jim Crowism in the early and middle 1900s. Cubbs argues that Dial “recounts many episodes in American memory, from the atrocities of slavery, Jim Crowism, and segregation to the Great Migration, the fight for Civil Rights, and the dilemmas of contemporary race relations.”[62] Cubbs argues that these histories boldly reflect in Dial’s formal choices, stating that, “Dial’s slashes of pigment become metaphoric fragments of a shattered social order, signifiers for the arbitrary violence of white supremacy.”[63] Her cynical yet crucial analysis of Dial points to a greater reality of the oppression of Black Americans in the South. This painterly technique that Cubbs notes appears throughout History Refused to Die and is most evident on the side where the white tin bird is perched. Cubbs also points out Dial’s frequently used ropes, chains, wire, and metal grids across his works, which are metaphors for confinement.[64] Alessa Pitchaman Alexander adds to these abrasive formal choices when she notes the weighted, rustic chains in Dial’s sculpture, The Blood of Hard Times (2004) (Fig. 9),  which are representative of forced labor and bondage.[65] Alexander writes, “Dial’s characteristically evocative use of carefully chosen materials speak about—and represent—the subject at hand, in this case, the difficult and violent labor of steel manufacturing, allows his work to move beyond both the realms of abstraction and literal representation.”[66] Lampkins-Fielder also adds that Dial saw himself as a “sort of scavenger or pick-up bird” and acknowledges his practice of recycling resources available to him within the context of his farm household in the rural South.[67] In Rizvana Bradley’s dissertation, she equates Dial’s discarded objects with African American artists living at the margins of society in the rural and urban South. Bradley explains that impoverished African American artist communities in the South were largely ignored and forgotten like discarded objects.[68] Many of Dial’s paintings and sculptural pieces are directly in conversation with histories of the slave industry, economic disparities, workplace discrimination, and brutality towards Black Americans. Dial’s Heading for Higher-Paying Jobs (1992) (Fig. 10) and Monument To The Minds Of The Little Negro Steelworkers (2001-2003) (Fig. 11) are prime examples that embody these meanings of Black exploitation and labor demands.

Driskell, Cubbs, and Alexander all mention the subject of labor and the unjust histories of the Black labor force in the South, but this subject seems most acknowledged in the work of Herman and Beardsley. Herman considers Dial’s life history in the context of a larger racist and hostile labor environment within Alabama. From the second half of the eighteenth century to the twentieth century, railroad and agricultural industries dominated throughout the state, both of which were dependent on Black labor.[69] Black Americans living within the so-called Black Belt region in Alabama gravitated toward both industries because they were a main area of employment; however, low-wage labor and lack of upward mobility proved difficult for Black populations living in the region.[70] In the case of farming, Herman emphasizes that Dial’s experiences tilling soil as a young child were inextricably linked to the constant exploitation of Black American sharecroppers.[71] Herman writes, “Dial’s commentaries are complex and thoughtful fusions of ideas and emotion. They are haunted works, and what shadows them is the uncertain relationship they establish between history and memory.”[72] As Herman’s quote makes clear, Dial’s work engages both with his own life history and with a dark past of industrial histories that was part of Alabama. Herman’s ideas of Black labor reflect within History Refused to Die with its showing of visceral chains, fabrics, sharp edges, and dirt traces along the okra roots.

In addition, Beardsley contributes his views on Dial’s working history in his essay titled “His Story/History” which is part of the exhibition catalog, Thornton Dial in the 21st Century. In this essay, Herman provides a brief overview of the growth of steel and iron production in the Black Belt region during the nineteenth to the twentieth century and associates this history with Dial’s practice.[73] Bessemer’s rich deposits of red iron ore in the town meant that commercial manufacturing of pig iron and steel could begin to take form.[74] According to a pamphlet from 1890 titled Mining and Manufacturing: Advantages at Bessemer In the Heart of Mineral Alabama, iron ore was mined and loaded into tram cars that were transferred to Bessemer’s furnace locations such as Chattanooga, Gadsden, Birmingham, and Ensley City.[75] An abundant source of iron ore, coal, and limestone in Bessemer’s outer areas contributed to the founding of the railroad car factory known as the Bessemer Pullman Standard Plant in 1929 (Fig. 12). This factory was one of the building facilities that was part of the greater Pullman Car Company from the twentieth century. Herman notes the social issues of labor, which included the discrimination and division of labor between white and Black workers, low wages, and inadequate technical training needed for production.[76] Beardsley does not elaborate on which workers specifically handled different machinery at the Plant, but his text proves critical for understanding the labor restrictions Black workers faced. Dial described his time at the Plant stating, “only things Negros do could was hard, nasty jobs, cleaning up, sweeping. White folks did the welding. I have always been a helper. And I wasn’t make much money as the White people.”[77] Dial began his work at the Pullman plant around the time a strike took place and witnessed the unjust treatment of its workers.[78] At the Bessemer Pullman Plant, the decision to restrict Black workers to certain types of labor was based on racist policies that were implemented by higher-level company officials.

Dial was attentive to the historical realities that involved the unjust treatment of Black Americans throughout modern history and into his present moment, and many of his works attend to Black American history and African American identity. Scholars have responded to Dial’s narrative accounts by attempting to locate distinctive meanings that are associated with his choice of materials. The tendency of scholarly arguments to continuously attach Dial with racially oppressive history raises the issue of discussing objects as direct symbols to Black historical oppression. Although Black American history is essential and important for investigating Dial’s work, an additional layer of study can be brought forth that does not solely tether Dial’s racial and social class identity to his work. Instead, in the following chapter, I reference the locations in which Dial used objects as opportunities for creative expression and connection to other artists such as Holly and Bendolph. Approaching these associations through autobiographical evidence and scholarly texts allows for a more local examination of his labored process that was shaped by greater socio-political histories of racial struggle in the American South.